All posts tagged: bob dylan

Explorers Bio Amanda Rivkin Photographer Young Explorers Grants, Expeditions Council Grant Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois Current City: Baku, Azerbaijan What did you want to be when you were growing up? When I was very small, maybe seven years old, I told my godmother I wanted to be a crane, and when she asked what kind of crane, I said an operating crane like on a construction site. As a teenager, I thought I would be a writer, which is what led me to go to the college I eventually went to, Sarah Lawrence College, although I waited until the last possible moment of my senior year to take a writing class, because the curriculum itself was designed for writers, with no exams and independent research projects to complement the work in every course. This is what led me to journalism school, where I discovered by wonderful accident my true passion, photography. How did you get started in your field of work? I was studying print journalism at Columbia University when I enrolled in a short course …

* “Kitsch is the inability to admit that shit exists.” – Milan Kundera Kitsch has the potential to unite all people, irrespective of culture, background, or elitist pretensions. Objects we acquire or accumulate have no meaning until we provide it. The uses for kitsch are infinite. Milan Kundera notes that kitsch is not just the “inability to admit that shit exists,” but also it is the natural aesthetic of all politicians. Last fall in a video interview for Fortnight Journal, I suggested that kitsch might just outlive us all – even the politicians. Yet most moments of pure kitsch happen far away from electoral politics, geopolitics, and the global spotlight. Kitsch injects sentimental into the otherwise mundane. Bob Dylan said “even the President of the United States must have to stand naked,” yet how naked can you be when your person has become part of a larger cult of presidential kitsch? Does kitsch protect? As I prepare to leave the USA for a Fulbright grant to Azerbaijan, I thought it was time to look back …

I so seldom have occasion to comment on commenting on official comments. Today is an exception. Inspired by Bob Dylan’s very simple yet eloquent statement that “When something is not right, it’s wrong,” I did something I never do. I commented on a news article, “Updated: Northwestern explains Protess decision, accuses professor of lying, doctoring emails,” in the online comments section. When something is not right, it’s wrong. For the past several months, Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism professor David Protess and the university have triangulated the blame over a series of accusations made as the result of a subpoena against the professor and the program by the State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez. Alvarez charges Protess bolstered students’ grades if their reporting on Anthony McKinney, accused and convicted of killing a security guard in Harvey, Illinois in 1978, revealed prosecutors’ misconduct and reversed his conviction. Later, charges surfaced as well of withholding documents from her office. Among other things, Alvarez sought student grades and notes, otherwise and previously fully protected under an Illinois “reporter shield” …